Pure Data has become an increasingly permanent fixture in my musical routine. I use it to teach, compose and perform; and so, I was delighted to attend, present and perform at the Pure Data Mini-Conference at Trinity College in Dublin in May, 2012.

Papers

The day began with a series of papers from students and lecturers from various institutions across Europe. Highlights: Dublin-based composer, David Collier, gave an interesting paper on the impact of Pure Data and mobile sensors on music composition. Andy Farnell gave the “keynote” address of the afternoon, prompting searching questions concerning generative systems for music composition, as well as an array of highly impressive synthesized sounds built within the Pure Data environment. All in all, some interesting discussion and thought-provoking ideas throughout the course of the paper presentations.

 

Performances

Photos by Daryl Feehely

The evening presented a series of very contrasting performances with Pure Data at the core of each event. 

Rich Duckworth gave a thought-provoking microtonal performance with augmented controllers; encouraging the development of ideas concerning real-time modulation between tuning systems; something which I hope to develop for fretless guitar in the near future.

Video (Improvisation Excerpts)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFa0OueA5_Y]

I performed an improvisation in quadraphonic sound with a stripped-down version of Pd2Live (Pd2Lite) and a newly programmed visual in GEM, names BLOCKS; all of which will be available shortly from the software page on this website. Thanks to Rich Duckworth for the video.

Lecturer and composer, Kerry Hagan, diffused a contrasting noise-based piece in quadraphonic sound completely synthesized in Pure Data. Softday presented a mash-up of various recorded and live sounds, including music by Miles Davis and a series of accessible controllers interfaced with Pure Data.

The highlight of the evening was the network performance Endphase 18-4 by Endphase (with João Pais on stage). This performance, named “Pigs,” featured networked performers in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland; all of whom provided GPS and SMS data in real-time whilst João mixed between audio from the different locations and displayed their location and messages in GEM (Pd). “Pigs” proved to be a highly entertaining piece.

All-in-all another successful Pure Data mini-con at Trinity College, Dublin. Many thanks to Rich Duckworth for his hard work and accommodation throughout the event and to those who came along and shared their ideas and art. Thanks to Jen Kirby for technical assistance.

Sláinte,

Ricky